I lost first game when he was only at 1 live. He destoyed my lands with devastating dreams, I fireblasted in response but wasn't able to finish him.

In game 2 a countryside crusher dies easily the same turn he is played since he has toughness
3, here we only have to be careful with the cicling lands, which can power him up at instant speed. He begins a loam but his wastelands are unuseful against my mountains. He is burned in the end.

In game 3 he starts with a fast dark confidant. I decide to kill him cause he is at 19 and the card advantage could be decisive in such an early stat of the game. I don't know however ih this was the right decision. I played 2 keldon marauders who blocked his powered countryside while dealing 4 damage to his head. Later on he plays a tarmo but it is too late. I win the round. Loam seems a good pairing to us cause it's not a very speedy deckand has not many defenses againsts bolts.

1-0

Round 2 against UWG Threshold:

First game I play around daze cause he doesn't start very fast and I prefer to play slowly and safer. That works and I finish with a victory. However I want to mention he played a stifle to my keldon marauders, which is not very terrible, but rift bolt is also vulnerable to this card, same as fanatic mogg. By this I want to say that not playing barbarian ring doesn't invalidate this card since we have many targets to be stifled.

Game two he starts fast. He has a tarmo, a mongoose and a trygon predator. I manage to play a flamebreak through his wall of counters and I finish the tarmo with a fanatic mogg I had previously in play. I am at 10 live and de predator attacks me for 2 every turn. This isn't fast enough and I win in topdeck mode. Here I want to say that volcanic fallout wouldn't have cleared the board as flamebreak did, 2 damage are not enough against thersh.

2-0

Round 3 against Rogue deck (playing monoblack rogues):

This deck tries to take advantage of the prowl mechanic. Game 1 he starts with bitterblossom. I play mogg and attack. He blocks with a token and I kill another one when the damage is on the stack by sacrificing the mogg. I play another mogg and repeat the same trick next turn going 2x1 with the mogg. Meanwhile he is loosing quite a lot of lifes due to the blossom. He plays 2 morsel theft and wins 6 lives, which is quite hard for burn.I burn his rogue dudes that gave +1/+1 to the others and let alive the less important ones. Finally I win helped by the life loss of bitterblossom.

Game two I sided out price of progress cause he plays only a few nonbasic lands. I sided in sulfuric vortex to prevent the life gain of morsel theft. He didn't draw many dudes and I decided to kill all of them cause he has a jitte on the board, which I couldn't face (I should have prevented that and entered smash the smithereens in the main!) I block the prowl mechanic by not allowing any rogue to attack creating some sort of card disadvantage in his hand and manage to win another round.

3-0

Round 4 against Enchantress:

I am not used to this match but any combo is a good pairing to burn. Game one I start fast but he plays a solitary confinement in third turn. I answer with all the instants I have in hand, including a fireblast by sacrificing 2 of my 3 mountains. He is at 2 live in third turn! With the confinement on the board he has the control of the game, I have anything in the list to combat this card. Fortunately I have obliged him to play the confinement in the third turn, what is a little bit early, and he doesn't draw enough enchantments to mantain the confinement. I burn him as soon as he have to sacrifice the confinement.

Game two he plays word of worship, a card that enables him to gain 5 lives instead of drawing. I haven't sided in the sulfuric vortex (no experience aginst this deck!) so I can't afford this.

Game 3 I side out the price of progress cause in game 2 he has fetched for basic lands to prevent the live loss of the progress. I side out also the pyrostatic pillars (which I have sided in before) cause they are not very efficient against this deck, he plays a lot of high costs. We start and my opponent isn't able to play a third land in the third turn to pay the 3cmc of the confienement. That is enough to me cause I manage to do a turn 4 kill.

4-0

Round 4 againts Dreaded Fish:

I am first in the tournament lists. Me and my opponent will enter the top8 but we decide to play anyways. Game one I start slowly and he fetches for basic lands cause he knows what I am palying. I have 2 useless price of progress in hand. He plays a thoughtseize and discards one of my bolts, so he has payed 2 live to prevent a 3 live loss, which is not very efficient. Next turn he plays a dreadnoguht and I couln't race him.

Game two I think he played also a second or third turn dread. I played a smash to smithereens in response but he had the fow. Round lost!!!

4-1

Top8 against Merfolks:

First game I start with mogg and he starts with aether vial. Some turns after I block with the mogg and shoot at one silvergil adept. He plays a lord in response through the vial and my mogg missed the shoot. Ouch! He cuts my flamebreak and makes an alpha strike with all of his critters. Game lost.

Game 2 I sided out again the price of progress and entered the sulfuric vortex cause I expect some jittes. I start again with mogg and second or third turn he plays a stanstill. I decide to not break the standstill and attack with the mogg for a lot of turns. In the end he sees a mutavault and stops the mogg. He is at 10 and I have no intention to break the standstill. I have a lot of mountains in play and a lot of instants in hand, with some more I can bolt him at instant speed, even in response to the breaking of the standstill. My opponent decides to break himself the standstill and the card advantage I take wins me the game.

Game 3 I play 2 magma jets looking for a flamebreak and a vexing susher. I find a flamebreak and I play it around daze, I can't wait for the vexing. Unfortunetely he has a blue elemental blast in hand. He races me and this is the end of my torunament.

Conclusions:

- I have sided out the price of progress many times. Next tournament I will play 3 copies, not 4. Good players always look for basic lands if they think they don't nedd the duals.

- The combo matchup is very bad for burn. I haven't faced ad nauseam in this tournament, but a friend took this deck to the store and I tested against him before the start. Pyrostatic pillar is too slow to face the modern combos. Against enchantress pyrostatic has proven unuseful.

- Keldon marauders are good. They have done 5 damage points quite often. With them is very likely to achieve the 20 points of damage in 4th turn.

- 19 mountains is the number. I have had always 2 of them in hand at the start.

- The burn deck in some sense invalidates the powerful fow and many other cards as thoughseize, as opponent may prevent a 3 damage bolt but at the cost of 1 or 2 lives, so we still dealing damage.

Julian23

05-31-2009, 11:31 AM

Playing something "in response" to the Standstill trigger won't accomplish what you intended to do as Standstill will just trigger again and your opponent will draw 3 cards before any spell you played resolves.

matamagos

05-31-2009, 12:10 PM

Yeah it's true I didn't read well the card. However we didn't arrive at this situation, and anyways I think merfolks doesn't play counters enough to stop a full hand of bolts played in the same turn. Fow is not very effective since he investes 2 cards and 1 life to stop a spell that will cause him to loose 3 or 4 lives, and daze is useless when I had 5 or 6 mountains on the board.

GiantGrowth

07-16-2009, 10:42 PM

so you didn't see any counter-top? What would have been your plan if faced with the soft lock early?

beastman

07-16-2009, 10:46 PM

Congratulations on the finish. Against aggro loam, you got very lucky not to see a chalice played against you, as that almost single handedly wins the game. Very nice job though.

troopatroop

07-17-2009, 12:36 AM

so you didn't see any counter-top? What would have been your plan if faced with the soft lock early?

Clearly Burn decks don't have much against an active Counterbalance-Top. Asking him what his "plan" would have been is just being synical, cuz there is no plan. The whole deck costs 1, what can you do? Don't snip at the guy for not running into his worst matchup.

Congrats on the finish.

GreenOne

07-17-2009, 03:43 AM

Clearly Burn decks don't have much against an active Counterbalance-Top. Asking him what his "plan" would have been is just being synical, cuz there is no plan. The whole deck costs 1, what can you do? Don't snip at the guy for not running into his worst matchup.
The deck actually has plans against countertop:
- Win before CounterTop goes online.
- Play around it with 3+ mana costs (Rift Bolt, Flamebreak, Fireblast)
- Vexing Shusher from the SB.
- Stick a Sulfuric Vortex and let the opponent die a slow and painful death. What if the opponent has Counterbalance+Top+a reasonable clock? Well, lucky him, try with the 2nd and 3rd option.

TheRock

07-17-2009, 09:23 AM

That's a fine list, and if your metagame doesn't dictate that 4 PoP is the best call, then that's the best call.

What is your reasoning for Flamebreak though? Fallout is far better against Merfolk and Fish.

troopatroop

07-17-2009, 12:57 PM

The deck actually has plans against countertop:
- Win before CounterTop goes online.
- Play around it with 3+ mana costs (Rift Bolt, Flamebreak, Fireblast)
- Vexing Shusher from the SB.
- Stick a Sulfuric Vortex and let the opponent die a slow and painful death. What if the opponent has Counterbalance+Top+a reasonable clock? Well, lucky him, try with the 2nd and 3rd option.

He said, "When facing the soft lock early". To me that means that it's in play. Post sideboard he's got a shot, but it's definitely close to unwinnable before that.

coraz86

07-17-2009, 03:32 PM

What is your reasoning for Flamebreak though? Fallout is far better against Merfolk and Fish.

Flamebreak hits players, too. In addition to wiping threats off the board (which keeps him from dying), it knocks another three points off his opponent's life total. Three points is a big deal when you're racing, and taking your opponent from a decent life total and an advantageous board to a neutral board and precarious life total is a huge swing.

TheRock

07-19-2009, 10:20 AM

Flamebreak hits players, too. In addition to wiping threats off the board (which keeps him from dying), it knocks another three points off his opponent's life total. Three points is a big deal when you're racing, and taking your opponent from a decent life total and an advantageous board to a neutral board and precarious life total is a huge swing.

Fallout does the same thing, except it doesn't get Dazed or Forced. Granted, you want Flamebreak against Zoo, killing Geese and Predators and Drakes is good, and the one point of damage is real nice, but I asked the question because I saw Fish and Merfolk on his tournament report (and, unfortunately, as two losses :( ).

Personally, I primarily use Flamebreak in my sideboard now just because of decks like Merfolk and Fish and against cards like Factory and Cliques.

matamagos

07-19-2009, 07:52 PM

About counterbalance:

Vexing Susher has proven a good option in the sideboard. In addition next time I will play Shattering Spree instead of Smash to Smithereens (The 3 damage of smash are nice, but it is a card too easy to counter, and since I always expect to face some dreadnoughts I think I will be more confortable playing shattering).

With 3 vexing and 3 shattering in side counterbalance should not be such a problem. Of course shattering doesn't answer the problem, but you oblige your opponent to bounce the top for 1 turn.

About fish and merfolks:

Merfolks are getting very popular in my meta, and they are not an easy matchup. And from now on, with the new rules of M2010, wake thrasher has improved a lot and can finish us in 2 turns.

It's true that here volcanic fallout is superior to flamebreak. But remember that merfolks play 8 lords, so a couple of them can invalidate volcanic fallout.

I think rather than play the fallout I would play some red elemental blasts in the side to cover my flamebreaks. I will get rid of the pyrostatic pillar cause my experience with them has not been very positive. I hope the blasts will help me both againts combo and against merfolks.